As many of the faithful may attest, it can never be said that saving souls isn’t heavy lifting and strenuous work. But a Las Vegas man understands that in a painfully literal way.

Daniel Dastrup, acting as his own attorney, is suing the LDS Church because of injuries he incurred while performing baptisms for the dead. No, he wasn’t dunking zombies into holy water hoping to win salvation for them. Instead he was performing a ritual in which the living serve as proxies for the unsaved deceased.

He was serving as a volunteer youth leader with the Mormons in North Carolina, his suit claims, when he suffered a herniated disk in his spine while performing the baptisms on some of the members of his group. But some of the young avatars he was using weighed more than 250 pounds, his lawsuit claims. He says he did about 200 devil-proofings, but an official at the church would never give him a break, the Salt Lake City Deseret News reported..

The following day, Dastrup woke up in blessed pain and later learned of the severity of his injury. His suit claims “the repetitive motion required for performing baptisms for the dead could cause serious damage to a person’s back…”

He is suing for medical expenses and loss of employment in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court.